To Sum Up

All things involving improv are going very well.

After missing an earlier meeting, I managed to make another meeting to talk to a prof about my involvement in next year's improv ensemble.

The week at VCMI was spectacular. I'm still letting it sink in,but here are a few insights:

-While studying piano miniatures in orchestration this year, we talked about the need for events that set things in motion, and the reactions to those events. I'll give the credit to Evan Parker for allowing me to find a tangible version of that - now I actually understand and feel it.

-Free Improv usually happens without form - therefore pitch relation is a) not stressed and b) somewhat avoided. Extended techniques on all instruments, playing clusters, and using the percussive elements of the inside of the piano all take the focus away from pitch. When you take one of the main elements of music out of the picture, it's amazing how much more you can find in that which remains!
It also allowed me to be more honest/ sincere and uninhibited in my responses to what was happening around me. It was SO MUCH FUN to play without thinking about which specific notes I was going to play. At the same time, I was able to colour things with pitch material with minimal thought processing. This gives me a new direction in practising improv - the more I do it, the better I will become at controlling pitch material while doing it.

-One of the composers on faculty was Barry Guy, who is very much encompassed in the world of free music, even though he has substantial backgrounds both in jazz and classical music. It was really interesting to see how he was incorporating improv into his scores - graphic scores, free notation. Nevertheless, he also had some interesting ways of putting limitations and being fairly specific with pitch material.
When I originally wrote Auskultu Bonvolu, while not planning things out, I had intended it as part of a series - pieces that taught both composer and performers how to incorporate improvisation into performance when the performers claim not to be improvisers. My self criticism with the first piece was that it was too detailed with the pitch material. Now I have more ideas of how to allow more freedom.

Oy, I get distracted too easily. Shorter blogs would be easier to do... oopsie, oh well.